


Shadowed Remnants of Broken Dreams

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Childbirth, Community: twreversebang, F/M, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Pregnancy, Resurrection, Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:38:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Scott dies, Allison and Stiles are left to grieve together. They need each other, as Stiles helps Allison through her grief and pregnancy, but at the moment when they begin to become closer, Stiles sees Scott watching them. Haunted by the ghost of his best friend, Stiles needs to find a way for them to get through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadowed Remnants of Broken Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for [twreversebang](http://twreversebang.livejournal.com), for fabulous art by chosenfire28. Go check it out and leave love! I'll wait. [NOTE: Link to be added as soon as I get it, sorry!]
> 
> I couldn't resist the prompt that went with this art, and while this was an incredibly difficult story to write emotionally, I am so glad I did. I love this story and have been looking forward to sharing it, and I am thrilled to get to work with my partner in crime to develop the path of this story. All kudos for the seeds go to her.
> 
> This piece comes with heavy warnings, and yes, it is loaded with angst. But I hope you give it a chance. The warnings are very real but there is hope. Oh and this is my first real descent into a less structured form of non-linear narrative, which hopefully works!

The first time Stiles sees him is right after he kisses Allison for the first time. They lie there tangled on the sofa, a movie still playing in the background and Allison finally sleeps as Stiles strokes his hand down her arm, rubbing circles in the small of her back. For the first time in a month he feels the heavy depth of sorrow lift off of him.

Then he spots Scott, just standing there in the corner of the room, quietly watching. Stiles twitches, flinches away from him. “Sorry,” he blurts out, even if he knows he’s talking to shadowed remnants of broken dreams.

Scott puts his hands up, his gaze dropping to Allison, expression something like a kicked puppy. “No, dude, it’s okay, I get it.” He shrugs as he comes closer, goes to his knees and lightly touches the swell of Allison’s belly. “I mean, I’m dead.”

Stiles is hallucinating. He _knows_ he is hallucinating, but still, it’s _Scott_. His heart aches at the sight of him, his eyes burning with the need for tears. “Yeah, buddy, you are,” Stiles says softly. “You’re also the result of me not sleeping more than an hour or two a night. I knew sleep deprivation would kick in eventually—it’s impossible to burn the candle at both ends without running out of candle at some point. But I didn’t think my brain would be cruel enough to do _this_.”

Scott smiles slightly, that familiar gentle puppy expression. When his fingers ghost over Stiles’s knee, he can almost _feel_ them, a shiver of cold as if Scott might actually be there. Stiles blinks several times, trying to clear his vision, but nothing changes.

Scott kneels on the floor, his hands now pressed to Allison’s belly, his head turned so that his ear is against her shirt. He breathes slowly, his eyes closed, and Stiles wonders if this imaginary ghost can hear the baby’s heart beat.

“She’s okay,” Stiles offers. “I mean. As okay as she can be. Considering.” He makes a jerky motion with his hand that he knows Scott can’t see.

Stiles is talking to a hallucination as if he is somehow real. He rubs at his eyes, expecting something to change _again_ , but it doesn’t.

“What about you?” Scott’s breath is slow and easy, inhaling in time with Allison, and exhaling silently.

“I’m okay. We’re okay.” Stiles pauses, then shakes his head. “I mean, we’re _not_ okay, dude. We’re definitely not okay. I miss you like… you’re my _brother_. I never wanted to imagine a world without you and here we are and there you are and you’re _dead_ , dude. And Allison, she’s a fucking wreck and she can’t be alone at night. I mean. It’s not… we’re not…” Stiles tries to catch a breath, realizing that he’s starting to hyperventilate.

The frigid grip of fingers wrapped around his wrist pulls him from the oncoming panic attack, slowing his heart abruptly. Scott is close now, nose to nose with Stiles, and there is a chill in the air that has Stiles shivering.

“Don’t,” Scott says quietly, and his eyes flash red. “Don’t apologize for _anything_. You are both important and I need you to take care of her. And if she’s helping you, that’s cool too. You’re my brother, dude, and I trust you.”

“I kissed her,” Stiles says, as if Scott hadn’t been there to witness it.

As if Scott is really there at all.

Scott’s smile is a beaming ray of sun. “I know.” He stands up and puts one hand out when Stiles moves to follow him. “Let her sleep,” he says. “You both need it.”

Stiles lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. “What now?” he asks, and Scott shrugs.

“I don’t know. This is all pretty new to me. I haven’t been dead before.” The smile comes back slowly, and for a moment something cold passes by as Scott touches Stiles’s shoulder. “You’ll figure it out for me. You always do.”

Scott is gone between one blink and the next, and in the sudden absence of the chill, Allison stirs in Stiles’s arms. “Whazzat?” she murmurs.

“I think I’m tired enough that I’m starting to hallucinate,” Stiles says slowly, pressing his lips to her hair, wanting to ease her back into sleep. “I thought I saw Scott.”

He feels her sigh, feels the tension slip into her body before she pulls back to look at him, eyebrows drawn and expression serious. “You were dreaming,” she tells him quietly. “Because you feel guilty about kissing me. But don’t. Scott would be okay with it, I think. He loved us both, and we both loved him. I think he’d understand.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “He does.” And that’s what makes Stiles think that maybe it’s not a hallucination. Maybe it’s real. Because _he_ never would have thought Scott would say that. He would imagine the guilt, and the anger, and if he were dreaming up a Scott after the kiss, that Scott would yell at him, not say that it’s okay… he’s dead.

Allison tilts her head, waiting for something more, but Stiles doesn’t know what to say so he just shakes his head and wedges his arm behind her. “C’mon, let’s get you someplace more comfortable to sleep. Eight months of baby is hard enough on your body; you don’t deserve the backache of sleeping on the couch all night to go with it.”

It takes two of them to get her up from the couch at this point in her pregnancy, and they are laughing by the time she is standing. She leans into him, both of them tired as she waddles and he accompanies her down the hall to her bedroom.

When he tucks her into bed first, then shucks everything but his boxers and climbs in with her, it seems normal. She turns closer to him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her belly pressed against his side. He strokes his hand over her shoulder and waits until he hears her breath go even and soft, sleep stealing her away again.

He has spent every night for the last month with Allison. Every night since Scott died.

It’s the only way either of them has been able to sleep at all.

He stares at the ceiling as he often does, searching for oblivion. When he finally finds it, it comes with the echoes of Scott’s words, and the image of his crooked smile. Stiles misses him so much that it aches deep in his gut, and he slides into sleep with tears wet on his cheeks and his fingers tangled with Allison’s, holding on as if she might leave him too.

#

Stiles is in the classroom when the pain strikes.

It strikes through his heart, clenching tight and stabbing sharp. He cries out, clutching at his shirt, fingers scrabbling at his chest as if he could make it somehow _stop_. It does, for just a moment, and he sucks in breath that comes out in a wheeze when it starts all over again.

He doubles over, grabbing for the garbage by his desk as he retches, losing his lunch. Dimly he hears voices around him, feels fingers against his shoulder, careful and hesitant and a fairy-light counterpart to the pain that’s ripping him apart. _Mr. Stilinski_ they say and he wonders who the hell that is until he remembers that it’s _him_.

These are his students, his sixth period class, and this… this is what a fucking heart attack feels like.

_…He’s too young…_

_…He looks so healthy…_

_…Is he going to die?…_

_…I know CPR…_

_…Give him space, let him breathe…_

He goes to his knees, pushing one arm out to shove them all back away from him. “I’m not going to die,” he rasps out, but he doubts they believe him. There is yelling, words he can’t pay attention to, someone running out with the door slamming behind them. He doesn’t have long, he knows, before someone is there to escort him to the nurse and call an ambulance. They won’t call 911, not right away… not with the principal being distantly related to Deaton and well aware of the supernatural insanity that is Beacon Hills.

But they’ll take him away from the classroom, talk to him, insist on knowing _why_ this is happening.

Stiles doesn’t know for certain, but he has an idea.

The pain eases slowly, letting his heart beat more normally, and he sucks in a breath, holding it for a long time before letting it out slowly. He manages to get his hand into his pocket, withdraws his phone and composes a text to the two people he suspects might know as much as he does right now.

Only one text comes back, and Stiles tries to breathe through the instant of panic as he staggers into the hallway, leans against the wall and dials the phone. “Allison?” He talks as soon as he hears the click of the connection. “Al? Did you hear from him? Did you hear from Scott? Because you texted me back and he didn’t and my heart _hurts_.”

“Do you think it’s the Nemeton?” she asks softly, and he can hear the pain in her voice.

“The baby?” Thoughts are pinging around in his mind as if the adrenalin has erased all trace of Adderall from his system.

“What? It’s fine. I’m fine. I thought I was having a heart attack.” Her voice goes soft. “I haven’t, Stiles. I haven’t heard from him. I tried calling him as soon as it happened because if I was going to die I needed him and he didn’t answer. I can’t reach him, Stiles.”

Breath is tight in his chest. It isn’t the darkness in his heart this time, it isn’t the hole where Scott belongs… this time it’s a panic attack, clenching at his throat until he wheezes. He hears Allison’s voice, and he focuses on that, listens to the sound and cadence because the words make no sense. “I’m here,” he finally manages to say, fingers white where they clutch the phone. “I’m here.”

“Mr. Stilinski!”

He looks up at the sharp call echoing against the lockers in the hall. The principal stands there, his phone in his hand, cradled against his palm. “It’s your father,” he says. “There’s been an accident. Scott’s car.”

“Stiles?” Allison’s voice rises. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“Scott’s been in an accident.” He manages to force the words out before the pain twists through him again. It punches him in the gut and seizes his heart, twisting with claws out and digging into his lungs. He cries out as he goes to his knees, and he hears Allison’s scream through the phone when it clatters against the hard floor.

He doesn’t have to ask if Scott’s okay.

It wouldn’t _hurt_ like this if Scott were okay.

Stiles gasps through the pain, and when the darkness comes, he floats into it, reaching for the fingers of the two who should be floating with him. He has never known whether this is real or something only in his mind, but he takes comfort in it now, that he finds them both there, when he lets the darkness steal him away.

#

Stiles has been in the hospital morgue before. He can’t forget his first time in the room, that shocking moment when Melissa McCall pulled back the sheet and he saw Heather lying there.

That was the moment when death became abruptly personal.

He’s been surrounded by death for so long that he has almost become numb. At twenty-five, he knows he’s not immortal. Even as a teenager, surrounded by death on all sides, he somehow had that insistence in his mind that he’d make it through. But now he realizes that he’s going to die someday, and that he carries a small ring of death inside his own heart. But he still didn’t think it would strike him or his loved ones.

Not yet.

He hesitates with his hand against the door, unwilling to push it open and make it _real_.

“Stiles.”

He turns at the sound of her voice, already knowing that she draws close to him. They can feel each other; they’ve all been able to do it, ever since they died together. He holds his arms open and she moves slowly, waddling slightly with the weight of her belly leading the way. Stiles meets her halfway and wraps his arms around her, holding her as she presses her face against his shoulder. She hiccups softly, and he strokes her hair. “Hey, Al,” he murmurs.

“I need to… I need to identify him. Because I’m his wife,” she says quietly. “They um… they’ve called his mom in, too. She wasn’t on duty tonight. I don’t know if it would have helped, though. They said… they said he was dead before they got him here.”

“How?” Because he can’t imagine how it could have happened that something would kill a werewolf that quickly. He tries to make sure Allison knows what he means, because there’s a quiet doctor standing behind her, waiting for them both and listening to every word they say’ when she nods, he’s sure she’s on the same page.

“Bled out.” She sucks in a breath and burrows closer. “He was in an accident—a motorcycle turned in front of a tractor-trailer, and the truck veered into Scott’s lane and the impact sheered off the front of the car, tucked him right underneath the carriage of the truck. He…” She hesitates and Stiles whispers nonsense words to comfort her, trying to do what he knows is impossible. “Things broke, in the car. It nicked an artery… they say he was probably dead in minutes, he would have bled out so fast.”

Stiles feels the chill of that thought into his gut, knowing that it wasn’t that simple. Scott’s body would have _tried_. He’s the fucking _True Alpha_ , like a super wolf, and his body would have done anything it could to keep him alive and heal that wound. But it’s not instantaneous, and it needs fuel. And every beat of his heart would have pumped more blood out while he tried to heal, and in the end, the rapid-fire pace of his panicking heart would have won out over the desperate healing of his supernatural body.

It was probably awful.

Allison starts shaking, tears damp against Stiles’s shoulder, and he holds her as carefully as he can even though he knows he is shivering as well. They stand there until a kick presses between them, her child in motion strongly enough that Stiles feels it. He steps back just enough to touch her belly where the baby is, nudging it when it pushes at him again.

“Mrs. McCall.” The doctor’s voice is low, deeper than Stiles expected from his youthful features. He doesn’t look all that much older than them, and it seems almost like being back in high school, when everything centered around the teenagers. It’s not a very comforting thought.

“I need you to confirm the identity, and to sign some papers.” The doctor’s tone is gentle. Careful. Stiles wonders how many of these he deals with in a day, a week, a month… where the grieving family is in tears but the bureaucratic bullshit still needs to be done.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he offers, and when he holds his hand out, she takes it, threading her slender fingers with his. They walk into the morgue together, and they stand shoulder to shoulder when the doctor pulls back the sheet and Scott lies there, his skin paler than it should be.

“It wasn’t the throat,” the doctor explains, his fingers against the wound Stiles can see still gaping, partly knit back together alone the line of his vein. “While glass did cut him here, it didn’t do enough damage for the bleed he experienced.”

Stiles mentally translates that to that it healed faster than it bled.

“His leg, however.” The doctor sets the sheet back down, hiding those slack, silent features. “A piece of the door frame was embedded in his thigh. It sliced directly through the artery and was deep. He died quickly enough that he likely had no idea what happened. I doubt he felt any pain.”

Allison glances at Stiles, and he blinks before she drops her gaze. Scott felt pain; they both know it. They felt the searing pain of his death, and for a moment, Stiles had thought he’d go with him. He’s almost surprised that he didn’t, that he’s still standing here when Scott is gone. They have been bound together for so long, first by friendship and then by magic, that it seems wrong that one could end without the other.

Allison’s fingers go tight in his grasp and she squeezes her eyes shut tight while taking a shuddering breath. “I’ll be okay,” she answers the question he doesn’t get to ask, and he squeezes back to let her know that he’s not going anywhere. “I just need to… I have to do…” She can’t seem to make the words, but Stiles knows, and he lets her go. 

“I’m going to step out,” he says. “The doctor will help me find out if Scott’s mom is here yet.”

“I can’t—” The doctor tries to protest, but when Stiles gives him his calm glare, he relents and leaves Allison there alone with the body of her husband.

She deserves to be able to say goodbye. Stiles can handle the rest of the things that must be done, other than the paperwork that falls to her as Scott’s wife. He can take care of Melissa McCall, he can call Allison’s dad, he can wrangle more information from his own dad, he can notify the pack if they haven’t already somehow heard.

It gives him something to think about other than the way his best friend’s eyes are cold and lifeless, staring out at him from the slab in the morgue.

It gives him something to do other than breaking down the way he wants to. _Needs_ to.

He can be strong. For now.

#

“I’m okay!” Allison pulls back from her father, pushing at him slightly, ignoring the hurt way he watches her cross the room as soon as she is free of his hold. She has her arms wrapped around her, tight across her chest, and Stiles knows she is _not_ okay. She may never _be_ okay again, and all the noises that Chris is making in sympathy aren’t going to help.

_He doesn’t hate him, but he doesn’t like him, either. He doesn’t approve of us having a baby._

Allison has always talked to Stiles, ever since the Nemeton. She tells him the things that she wants to get out of her head, but she can’t tell to Scott. Things like how Chris really feels about her marriage, and the little details of bigotry in their supernatural world. Scott always wanted to believe the best, and he truly thought that he’d made progress with his father-in-law. And maybe he had… he didn’t hate him, after all. But things were still complicated, and Chris Argent was still a hunter, and Scott was still a wolf.

“Just let her go.” Dad’s voice rumbles from where he sits with Melissa, his arm around her shoulders. “If I remember, she yelled a lot when Victoria died, too.”

Yelled. Shot werewolves. Took her anger out in ways that could have gotten someone killed. Stiles hopes that Allison’s grief doesn’t end with anyone dead this time. “I’ve got it,” he murmurs, and he follows Allison into the kitchen where he practically grew up, ever since Scott came into his life.

“If you ask me if I’m okay, I might gut you,” she says calmly, although a smile skirts around the edges of her mouth. “There are knives here.”

“I know you’re not okay,” Stiles tells her. “Probably better than anyone out there, even his mom, because she doesn’t have a hole in her heart that’s bigger and darker than ever before. Although she probably feels like she does.”

Allison huffs a small snort and turns to lean against the countertop, her head tilted back. Her fingers curl over the edge, digging in until her knuckles are white. “It hurts, Stiles. Not just…” She circles her hand over her heart, and he nods, because that _does_ hurt. “But knowing that he won’t see our baby. That he’s never coming home. That my bed is going to be _empty_ and that someday I have to wash the sheets and it won’t smell like him anymore. That I won’t see his puppy eyes and stupid lopsided puppy smile.” She chokes a little, rubbing at her eyes, but Stiles won’t approach her, not yet, not until she says she wants to be comforted again. “I can’t deal with it. I don’t know how I’m going to get through tonight, or tomorrow, or the day after that.”

“They want to help.”

“I know.” Her voice is strangled. “I get that. I mean. Dad went through everything with Mom, and Scott’s mom is divorced and that had to hurt, and your dad… God, he had to watch your mom go through cancer. I know they _know_ how it feels to lose a part of yourself, and I _know_ Melissa is hurting and I still just can’t… I just can’t… I _can’t_ , Stiles. It’s too hard. I’m going to lose it, and then I’m not sure I can ever get myself back again, not when I’m not even sure how much of me is left to begin with.”

“Dad told the pack not to come over.” Stiles takes a step towards her, holds out his hand. She shrugs one shoulder, so he drops it, turning to lean back against the countertop next to her, their fingers brushing against the cold marble. “He’ll talk to them later, after we’ve gone. He knows you need some space.”

“I need _Scott_ ,” Allison growls, and she sounds so much like Scott right then that Stiles could almost believe she’s a wolf herself, if he didn’t know better. “It’s not supposed to be like this. We _talked_ about it when we got married, about how he’d live longer than me, that I might get hurt, or ill, and he wouldn’t. That I might lose my mind from age and he’ll still be strong. But he’s _not_. We’re the humans. We’re supposed to be the fragile ones, not him, but he’s the one who’s left us here, holding onto _nothing_ while he’s slipped away.”

Allison has anger holding her afloat but Stiles can’t do that. He crumbles in the face of her words, tears pricking at his eyes until they spill over and run down his cheeks. He tries not to—he needs to be strong for her—but he can’t stop them either. When he coughs, she turns, and her expression falls. She makes a strangled noise and pulls him in, pressing her face against his neck, hiccuping when he gulps in air.

Stiles wonders when he will be done crying. If he will ever be done grieving. He is twenty-five years old, and sometimes he still aches from his mother’s death. He has a feeling this will take just as long, if not longer.

“I should probably go back out there,” Allison murmurs against his shoulder, and he pats her shoulder carefully.

“Probably. I bet they’re looking at the door, wondering just how many knives you can get your hands on, and your dad might be telling them exactly how to deal with the lack of aerodynamics when using a chef’s knife for throwing.” He smiles slightly, and she almost smiles in return. “I mean, you’ve got hormones and grief and well, the Nemeton on top of all that. Maybe we should just grab the knife block and go outside and gut a few trees, first.”

She laughs then, and hugs him hard. “Thank you, Stiles, for being you. I think… I think I want to go home now, actually.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

“Can you see?” She brushes against his eyelids, and he nods. He can stop crying. He’s more worried about her anger than his grief. And he’s worried about what will happen when she really, truly, lets go of that anger. The grief will ride her more than a wolf on the full moon.

They make their goodbyes in a flurry of hugs, each parent holding on for too long and offering help. Stiles takes his dad aside and makes sure that he knows everything that the pack needs to hear, while Chris talks to his daughter in hushed tones. When Stiles finally gets her tucked into his car, she seems composed and calm.

He suspects that means she’s going to break soon.

At her house, she asks him to come inside. “I don’t think I can be alone here, tonight,” she says, and Stiles understands that. The house is filled with ghosts of Scott, his presence infused into every room. Stiles follows her in and ushers her straight down the hall, into her room. She is alone, briefly, while she changes into a t-shirt and sweat pants, then he moves to sit on the edge of her bed.

“I don’t know how to face the morning.”

“The same way we always do.” He plumps her pillow and holds back the sheets so she can slide under them. “You wake up, you get ready, and you do the things that have to be done. We’ve been walking in darkness since we were sixteen, Allison.”

“He walked with us.”

She has a point, and Stiles reaches out to take her hand, entwining them together. “If I know Scott,” he says quietly. “He’s wherever dead souls go, and he’s somehow watching over you. There’s no way he’d let you go through the rest of your life alone. And you’ve got me. Which isn’t the same thing, I know, but—”

“I appreciate it.” She squeezes his hand, turning towards him as she curls around her pillow. “Stay?” she asks again.

Stiles simply nods and stretches out on top of the covers. He’s not sure either of them will sleep, but at least they’ll be together in the darkness.

#

Normally Stiles takes work home and grades papers while curled on Allison (and Scott’s) couch, offering takeout in exchange for company. But the projects that his ninth graders have done are all poster board and artwork and not easy to shove into the back of his car without ruining them. So at half past eight, Stiles is still in his classroom, a pint of lo mein half-forgotten on the corner of his desk, as he goes over a detailed description of the differences and similarities of Greek and Roman gods.

He’d laugh, if he had energy. These kids have no idea how close mythology and real life actually come to each other, sometimes. At least they’ve never had a god in Beacon Hills.

He sticks the end of his red pen between his teeth, chewing idly as he works his way through the writing. He has learned to slow down while grading papers, working his way through awkward penmanship and strange phrasing in order to tease out what the student actually meant to say. He isn’t a lenient teacher, but he refuses to be a hardass, either. If he can interpret  it, he’ll give the marks for it, although he may suggest a better way to say it. They are supposed to be learning here, and he won’t let them off too easy.

He hears the door hinges squeak, but when he glances up, the hall is just as dark as it has been for two hours now, since the janitorial staff left and the after-school activities finished. Stiles still finds this time of night unsettling in the school; he spent too much time here at odd hours back when he was a student. He glances at his phone to make sure there are no messages from Allison, then bends back to his work.

This time it’s a chair that moves, and he looks up sharply, gaze narrowed.

Scott looks back at him, sprawled like a teenager in one of the awkwardly shaped desk-chairs.

“Holy _crap_ , I’m losing my mind.” Stiles stands up, pushing the poster and his pen away, the red leaving a scuff of color on the white of the board. He shoves his hands through his hair, trying to scrub his mind clean before he looks out into the room again.

Scott’s still there.

“You’re not insane,” Scott tells him. “I’m really here. I can’t actually _go_.”

“You’re not real,” Stiles insists. He remembers the first time… he’d actually forgotten it, put it out of his mind as a strange dream because it obviously hadn’t happened. In all the crazy things they’d seen, there had never been a ghost before now.

 _Before now_.

Listen to him, believing this already.

He walks over to where Scott sits and reaches out. Scott doesn’t move as Stiles puts his hand against his chest— _through_ his chest—and touches the back of the chair.

“I said I was here. I’m still dead, though,” Scott reminds him. “That hasn’t changed.”

“Can it change?” Stiles sinks into the next chair, using the desk part to hold himself upright.

Scott shrugs. “I don’t know. You’re the one that’s good at figuring that kind of thing out. I guess I’d figured you’d be looking into it already.”

Stiles doesn’t even know where to begin. He’s never looked into ghosts, never needed to. “You’re dead,” he says, even though Scott has already pointed that out. “Why are you here? I mean, not _here_ here—that’s obviously because you’re asking me to research things for you, or else I’m hallucinating and desperate to not let you go. But why aren’t you dead of the buried under the ground and silent sort of dead?”

Scott’s smile blooms. “I’ve missed you.”

“Of course you have, dude.” Stiles shakes his head, because that’s obvious. There’s a lot of missing going around between the three of them. “Now answer the question.”

Scott meets his gaze. “I can’t go.”

“Why?” Because whether this is Scott or his subconscious, Stiles needs to know the answer.

Scott’s smile is wry. “I can’t leave you and Allison. We’re bound together. I can’t go without you, so since you’re still here. I’m still here. You’re stuck with me, dude.”

It’s his subconscious.

Stiles _wants_ this to be Scott. He wants this to be the shadow of Scott, waiting for Stiles to find a solution to somehow return him to the living (or at least to a place where Allison can see him, too). He wants it so much that it aches in his chest, but at the same time… with an answer like that… he knows that this must be _because_ he wants it so much.

He puts his head down on the desk, banging it against the cold surface. “I’m definitely going insane.”

Chill pricks at the base of his neck, drifting over the top knob of his spine and drawing down over each little bone until Stiles shivers and sits up. Scott jerks back, his hand falling slowly to his side as he stands there, looking down at Stiles. “You’re not going insane,” Scott tells him. “I need you to believe me, Stiles. I’m really here, and I’m not going anywhere. Allison’s having my baby, and you have to be my hands to help her. Take care of her, and if you need it, let her take care of you.”

Stiles pushes to his feet, walking _through_ Scott with a blast of chill air, pacing to the windows that line one wall. He looks out at the moon and wonders what the pack is doing for the full moon. For a moment he wonders if Isaac is okay, if Cora and Derek are taking care of him. He’s been lax in dealing with the pack. “Some days it just takes everything we’ve got to get through from morning until night,” he murmurs, his head falling forward against the cold glass.

“I didn’t mean to go,” Scott says. 

Stiles won’t turn around and look at him again, not now. He catches his lower lip in his teeth, biting down hard against the tears. “I want you to be _here_ ,” he finally manages to say, grinding out the words between his teeth. “Not like some shadow, but _here_. She needs you. I need you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got time to see if you can fix it.”

By the time Stiles does turn around, Scott is gone, faded as if he were never there. Stiles sees the irony of his exit line, and would think it was on purpose, but that’s not Scott’s style.

His phone is flashing on the desk, and when he picks it up, he sees the message from Allison. He texts her back that he’ll be there soon, and offers her the last of his lo mein. It doesn’t take him long to pack things up to get out of there, but he still lingers in the door, looking at the two desks that are turned slightly towards each other.

 _He_ didn’t move the second desk.

There’s a chill in his gut, a swift kick to his heartbeat.

He’s half afraid to think that maybe he’s not imagining things at all.

#

The first hour of the wake is just for family. For _pack_.

When his dad offers to drive, Stiles is more than happy to let him do that. He doesn’t want to get behind the wheel today, not when they are mourning his immortal best friend who was put in the ground by a car, of all things.

There are jokes that could be made here. Dog jokes. Car chasing jokes. Incredibly inappropriate jokes born of discomfort and grief. Jokes that would probably make Scott laugh if he were here to hear them. But he’s not, and that lack makes Stiles strangely silent as he sits in the back seat of John’s car, leaving the front open for when they pick up Melissa.

She reaches over the seat as they get in, and Stiles takes her hand, squeezes it lightly. Her eyes are rimmed in red, her nose blotchy. Stiles feels like he should apologize for failing to protect her son, but instead he reaches out and lets her pull him in so they can comfort each other for a moment before his dad needs to start the car up again.

When they arrive at the funeral parlor, Allison is already there, huddled in a ball of black, curved protectively around her belly. Chris stands guard over her, his hand almost touching her shoulder every time she winces.

Isaac is at the casket, leaning heavily on the edge, staring down into it. Stiles can hear the low whimpers and whines from this distance, and he winces in time with Allison when the sound rises to a pained yip. Danny and Derek come in to bracket Isaac, one on each side, leaning into him and moving him away.

Stiles hugs Melissa again, then lets his father hug him, knowing it’s fear of losing him that makes him cling. He takes comfort from it, but at the same time, it makes him anxious. Now that he is in the same room as Allison, he can feel their darkness drawing them closer to each other. He makes his apologies to everyone else and pulls up a chair next to her, sitting nearby without being _too_ close.

He feels her fingers brush his, and he reaches to close that distance, letting their fingers tangle quietly. They stay like that as each of the pack comes up to Allison to offer their condolences, touch her belly, whisper to the son of their now-dead alpha. As each one passes by, Allison tugs on his hand and Stiles inches closer to her. By the time it is Lydia’s turn, Stiles has his arm around Allison’s shoulder and she tilts her head into him. When Derek kneels in front of her, Allison has her hand on Stiles’s thigh and is digging her fingers in as if he might disappear when she’s not looking unless she holds on.

He’ll have bruises in the morning, but he doesn’t care. He won’t let her go through this alone. And he needs her as much as she needs him right now.

Eventually Stiles realizes that others are coming in. People they went to high school with, other parents from Beacon Hills. It seems strange to see Coach off to one side, talking with his hands and seeming to keep his back to the casket at all times.

He turns his head, whispering, “Have you said goodbye yet?”

She gives him a startled look and she shakes her head, one hand protectively on her belly. “In front of everyone?”

“After this, we’re going to put him in the ground, Al.” It’s already been three days since he died. Three days of waiting, worrying, trying to come to terms with it. “It’s not going to change. He’s dead. There’s no healing that can bring him back from this.”

Her chin wobbles and he sees the shine in her eyes.

“I’ll come with you,” he tells her. “I need to say goodbye too.”

He stands first and takes her hands to help draw her to her feet. He doesn’t let go as they move awkwardly through the growing crowd. The people part for them, letting the widow and the best friend approach the casket alone, leaving space for them to mourn in something that is almost private.

Stiles grabs a chair and swings it over, letting Allison sit by the casket. He stands next to her, one hand on her shoulder, the other on the wooden rim. He can see the fingerprints that Isaac left behind, and he makes a face, wondering what the mortuary will think of the imprints.

Allison doesn’t speak, so Stiles doesn’t either. He keeps his words inside his head, bowing it and closing his eyes before he goes through his final words to his best friend.

_You weren’t supposed to leave, dude. If anyone, I figured it’d be me that went first. You need to be here with Allison. I mean, I’ll do my best. I’ll take care of her, and you know she’ll take care of me. But she’s a wreck, dude. She misses you and it hurts and I can’t tell her when it’ll stop hurting. We’ve both dealt with death before, but it doesn’t get easier. Scott… it never gets easier. She’s going to look at your baby and she’s going to see you every damned day and I know she’s going to keep talking to you. I know she’s going to miss you._

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and feels it echoed as Allison shivers. She clings to Stiles as she stumbles to her feet, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she murmurs. “I… I don’t know if I can do it.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Stiles murmurs back. “Here, at the grave, at lunch after… I’m sticking with you.”

“Thank you.” Her lips are cold against his cheek, the soft kiss a faint thank you. “I should probably go talk to people.”

“They probably want to say something, I’m sure,” Stiles agrees. He lets her go reluctantly, sure that he imagines the pain when she moves further away. They are the only two anchors left now, and they are bound more tightly, he thinks, the ache around their hearts vivid and bright. 

He trails after her throughout the wake and graveside service, never far away, and right there when she reaches for him, clinging tightly.

#

Stiles is in the middle of grading exams when Allison kisses him.

They’ve done it before, several times since that first night, but it is usually soft and gentle, a touch in passing to remind each other that they are not alone. A whisper of lips against lips as they try to sleep, before they wrap around each other and hold each other in the dreamlands.

This time she curls next to him on the sofa while he has a pile of exams on the table on the other side. Her hip presses to his hip, her arm wraps around his left arm, cradling it as she leans into his shoulder. She shifts and sets his hand on her belly so that he can feel the little one moving around. He settles at the touch, and Allison smiles before she leans closer.

One hand slides behind his head, pulling him close enough that she can press her mouth to his, her tongue teasing at his lips.

This kiss has purpose, and Stiles is surprised at the way it warms his body.

She kisses with hunger and need, her hand finding his and sliding it under her shirt until he finds warm skin. Allison’s skin. The skin of a widow, and a best friend, and someone who is locked into his heart. He swallows a breath, not sure what to do.

“I want to feel alive,” she whispers, dark brown eyes open and honest. “Can you do that for me? I feel like… you’re part of me, Stiles. And your hands can reach.” She flushes faintly, but he can’t argue that a heavily pregnant belly doesn’t make anything easy at this point.

“What do you want?” Because he loves her, and he would do anything for her, even quiet the faint stirrings of his own blood at the idea of stroking her.

“Make my body sing.” She turns towards him, tilting her head back to kiss the underside of his chin. “Please, Stiles.”

There is a note of desperation in her voice, and God help him, he responds to that.

It takes some work to reposition them both, his legs spread and her cradled against him. She helps him shove her pants and underwear down beneath her hips, tug her loose top up to bare her belly and bra. When he tugs one more time, she lets him take the top off entirely, hissing softly when he trails a finger over the edge of her breast where it spills out of the bra cup.

“They’re bigger,” she says. “Scott liked them.”

“I can’t blame him,” Stiles says quietly. He cups them in his hands, sliding his thumbs against the taut nipples that press against the satin fabric. “I kind of like them too. Are you sure about this, Al?”

“Very.” She helps him tug the fabric away just enough that he can get a handful of nipple, and when he rolls it between thumb and forefinger she almost arches off the couch. “Oh, fuck, Stiles, they’re sensitive.”

“Could you come from this alone?” He’s curious suddenly, and tweaks her nipple again just to hear her moan and laugh all at once.

“We can find out another time. Now, _please_ …” She shoves his free hand down beneath her belly, and he willingly slides lower, stroking between her legs to find her wet already. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back against his shoulder, hips arching up into his touch as he slowly fucks her with two fingers, his thumb rolling against her clit. He tries not to think about the way she’s pushing back against his boner, the way he’s aching for her in ways he feels like he shouldn’t.

He’s getting her off… it’s only natural to think about being able to do it for himself, right?

Spotting Scott helps make his reaction wilt quickly. His fingers still, buried deep in her warmth, and she wriggles as her eyes pop open.

“Don’t tease,” she begs.

She doesn’t see him.

She looks right past Stiles, _right at Scott_ , and she doesn’t see him.

Stiles can’t say anything, can’t explain what’s going on because now he _knows_ that he’s hallucinating this. He gathers in a shuddering breath and lets it out slowly as his fingers move again, stroking in and out of her.

Scott approaches slowly, watching Allison with that besotted expression that he’s always had. The small smile, the soft eyes. The things that made Stiles jealous long ago, if he would admit it, because he knew he’d never have anything like what they had together.

Scott reaches out, fingers drifting over Allison’s other nipple, and she hisses in surprise.

“You okay?” Stiles murmurs.

“Cold for a moment,” she whispers back. “It was like something touched me.”

Scott kisses her breast, mouthing his way over her belly, and she whines softly. “It feels _good_ ,” she tells him. “Oh God, Stiles, don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

She can’t _see_ Scott, but she’s reacting every time he touches her.

Stiles just stares. Maybe he’s _not_ a hallucination.

“I’m here, dude,” Scott murmurs against Allison’s skin, breath a cold wash against Stiles’s hands. “Help me out. I can’t do this alone.”

That makes Stiles _move_ , driving his fingers deep inside of Allison as Scott’s breath ghosts over her belly, his tongue teasing at her clit. Allison whimpers beneath their touches, whines as she presses her hips down, body clenching around Stiles’s fingers. Stiles lowers his mouth to taste one nipple, stretched over her breast; she cries out when his teeth close around it, going tense before there is a rush of heat and a long moan before she falls back against the couch.

“I should feel guilty for asking you to do that,” she murmurs, twisting to curl in close to him.

Stiles glances at Scott. “Don’t,” he tells her. “I think if Scott… if he were here…” Scott nods, and Stiles’s breath hitches. He has to swallow before he can continue. “He’d say it’s okay. That it’s good that we’ve got each other.”

“Exactly.” Scott puts his hand on Stiles’s knee as if to push himself to standing. Then he’s there, leaning in, his lips a brush of cold against Stiles’s forehead before he kisses Allison the same way. 

“It’s not fair to you.” Allison’s words are soft, remote, her voice sleepy and her breath slow and even.

No, really, it’s not. Stiles’s dick is hard and aching, but at the same time, he doesn’t feel like he needs to get off. He’s okay like this, as long as he has Allison in his arms and she’s finally resting. “I’m okay.” He kisses the side of her head as gentle punctuation.

He feels something cold settle on his other side, and even though he can’t see him now, Stiles leans back against what he thinks might be Scott. His heart feels at ease like this, like he can finally breathe. His neck will regret it in the morning, but for now, he can sleep.

#

The pack doesn’t discuss the details when the funeral is over, but somehow they all end up at the same diner that they go to every month after their full moon run. The sheriff brings Melissa and Danny takes Isaac in his car. Derek and Cora arrive with Lydia and Jackson.

Allison holds on so tightly to Stiles at graveside that he can’t leave her; he follows her to Chris’s car, and together they direct Chris to the diner and invite him to join them.

The waitress shows them to the two large tables at the back that they always have, murmuring her condolences as she hands out menus.

No one says a word.

Isaac moves first, pushing back his chair with a heavy scrape against the floor. He avoids Danny’s reaching hands and circles behind everyone else until he gets to Allison. He drops down to his knees, head bowed against her thigh, one hand lightly touching her belly.

She clings to Stiles, hand so tight around his fingers that he’s afraid they might break. But she doesn’t tell Isaac to stop, doesn’t tell him to go away. “I’m okay,” she lies, repeating it one more time until Isaac looks up at her. They both know she’s not, but it seems to be enough for now and Isaac goes back to his seat.

It breaks the ice and murmured conversation begins, debating the merits of eggs over steak at lunch time and Lydia murmuring to Allison to ask whether she can tolerate the scent of fish. Allison looks at the menu for a few minutes then folds it and sets it aside, leaning back, her hand still clasping Stiles’s fingers.

He wiggles his fingers slightly, and she looks at him, unblinking. He smiles gently, trying to say that it’s okay.

Jackson gets up to go stand by the dessert case with Lydia, and he crosses behind them on his way back to his seat, his fingers brushing Allison’s shoulder. She jerks away, shivering, and snaps, “I’m okay. Just… leave me alone.”

Jackson raises his hands as he sinks into his seat. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Yes, you were. You _all_ are.” Her breath shudders as she struggles for words. Stiles’s fingers are lax in hers; he’s uncertain whether he’s included in that _leave me alone_ , although she hasn’t let go of him. “I know… I know you miss Scott. He’s… he _was_ … your alpha. And you’re all off-center and unbalanced and you all, your…” she hiccups instead of saying _inner wolves_ , but they all know what she means. “You need him. And he’s not here. And you _can’t_ transfer that to me. I’m human, and our baby isn’t even _born_ yet, and I just don’t want to be touched anymore. I know you mean well, and I know it’s a pack thing, but I can’t _deal_. I’m _okay_ and you’re going to have to trust me with that.”

“We need an alpha,” Isaac says quietly. “We need _Scott_.”

“Well, you can’t have him any more than I can.” Allison’s words are sharp, and she ducks her head immediately after speaking. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I am. But I can’t replace him for you. I’m grieving just like you are.”

“What if your baby—” Isaac cuts off at a sharp look from Derek and Danny’s hand squeezing his shoulder. He ducks his head, staring at the table.

“It doesn’t matter if Scott’s baby is an alpha,” Stiles says slowly. “He’s not even _born_ yet. And Allison needs some space. Maybe we all do, for a little while. A chance to grieve as people before we can grieve as a pack.”

The wolves exchange glances, everyone somehow looking to Derek who purses his lips and glares back at them. “I am _not_ alpha material,” he reminds them. “I’m just another beta. But the pack is welcome to come to our place. There’s plenty of room, if you don’t want to be alone. Cora and I don’t mind.”

Stiles can hear the voice of reason in his mind, almost as if Scott is sitting there next to him, weighing in on the conversation. “We’re going to have to figure out the alpha problem eventually.” He speaks the words that come from a Scott-shaped hole in his heart. “And we _will_ figure it out. Beacon Hills will still be protected, and we’ll all be a pack. Our own weird brand of pack with our humans and hunters and law enforcement officers.” He offers a pale grin to his father who gives him a wry smile in return. “We’ll talk in a week. Or two. Just… give us all a chance to heal, so we’re talking about the real issue, and it isn’t just about how much we miss Scott.”

“Agreed,” Derek says, and Jackson echoes it with Lydia, and Stiles is thankful that they can turn the conversation to something else now.

Food comes—almost more than can fit on the table, because grief hasn’t killed wolf-large appetites—and Allison picks at her meal while the others eat quickly. She pushes at the carrots in her salad, separating them carefully from the lettuce before picking them out, one by one, and dunking them in the ranch dressing she has on the side. Stiles nudges her until she manages to eat one piece of chicken out of the salad, then another, then she stops eating entirely, her skin pale and cheeks rose red.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she murmurs, and Stiles moves to give her room to get away from the table. For a moment it looks like Lydia might follow, but at a look from the others, she settles down and they let Allison go alone.

“She’s going to need to let the pack in,” Cora says quietly, as if Allison might have a wolf’s hearing and listen from a distance. “She’s carrying an alpha. Probably _our_ alpha.”

“Let it go for now.” Stiles looks to Derek for help. “This isn’t the first time we’ve lost someone. Yes, it’s the first in a while, and yes, it’s _Scott_. But she loved him… she’s loved him for almost a decade, and they were starting a family, and now she doesn’t have him anymore. She needs time to recover, and she’s _not_ a wolf, so you’re driving her nuts because you keep scenting her and touching her and making contact and take a wild guess what that makes her think of.” He waits a beat because he _knows_ they haven’t thought about how triggery it must be. “ _Scott_ did that. Scott was the wolf who was closest to her, so when you treat her like a wolf, she thinks of _Scott_. You’re making it impossible for her to heal.”

“I’ll take care of them.”

“He’s a crap alpha, but he’s a great pack mom,” Cora teases, shouldering her brother as he growls good-naturedly. “They’ll remember what it’s like to be human, Stiles. It’s just been a long time.”

“We’ll do our best to keep them anchored,” Danny offers, expression solemn. He winces as Isaac shoves back from the table, chair scraping before he walks off, heading outside. “It’s not easy for anyone.”

“Yeah, well, you guys weren’t bonded to him.” Stiles looks at Melissa and his dad and Chris. They all had different relationships with Scott, and he worries about them all. “Grief is personal. And we’re going to deal with it personally.”

He makes sure Chris knows he’ll take care of Allison, and makes sure that his dad is going to take care of Melissa, before he leaves the table. He goes to the restrooms and knocks gently on the door. “Al? I can take you home if you want to go.”

She emerges only a moment later, her cheeks and nose red, her eyes puffy. She nods. “Yeah. I want to go.”

She takes his hand again, holding on tight, and Stiles knows that he’s exempt from the blanket _go away_ she has given to the pack. He’s glad of that, because when he touches her, he feels less broken, less like he’s one third of a whole that’s been irrevocably shattered. They died together once upon a time; now they need each other in order to live.

#

Stiles hasn’t worked this hard on a supernatural research project in years, but after two weeks he still isn’t any closer to figuring anything out than he was before Scott appeared. He slowly moves his computer equipment into Scott and Allison’s house, taking over a corner of the dining room table with his things. He doesn’t say what he’s doing, just retreats to his computer every evening while Allison rests after dinner. He stops as soon as she calls to him, asking him to join her to watch something on TV, partly because he still has grading to do, and partly because he just wants to be with Allison.

But the research calls him back every time.

When he wakes up early on the weekend and crawls out of bed to settle in at the table, still in his sleep pants with his hair sticking up all over, he knows he might be getting obsessed. But he lets himself sink into the work while Allison sleeps in, finally getting some rest after a long week.

He doesn’t notice the rustling at first, doesn’t realize that she’s woken up and is going through his papers, until she asks quietly, “What are you doing, Stiles?”

She is holding a letter that he received from a Japanese Emissary, someone he’s corresponded with since he started trying to puzzle his way through what the Nemeton meant long ago. “It’s a letter from Nakamura,” he says. “You remember him, right? We met with him back in our junior year. After…” He flips his hand, makes a motion between the two of them and encompassing a space to the side where Scott should be standing.

She pulls out a chair and sinks into it slowly, leveraging herself into a comfortable position after dragging it close to Stiles. “I remember Nakamura,” she says slowly. “But why are you talking to him _now_? Why are you talking to him about _Scott_?”

He looks over at her, taking in the ridge of a frown across her forehead and the way her eyes glisten with the threat of tears. “It’s complicated,” he says.

“When isn’t it?” Allison sighs, pressing a hand against the small of her back. Stiles realizes that Scott is standing behind her, and when Allison leans forward to put her elbows on the table, Scott’s fingers glide down her back until they press into the sore muscles. Allison groans softly, still using one finger to try to work the knot out by herself.

“Scott’s dead,” Stiles says, holding up one hand when she gives him a look like a hurt puppy. “I mean, I know that he’s dead. But he’s also _here_. Like… right now, behind you, trying to rub your back. And I’m trying to figure out what to do about it, because he keeps being here, like he’s still a part of us, and I can’t think that’s good for a soul.”

And what if they can get him back? What if it means that he’s not gone because he _won’t_ leave? What if they could pull him from the precipice of going into the beyond?

Allison blinks. “I think you need to get more sleep, Stiles.”

He brushes that off with a flick of his fingers. “Now that we’re…” Again, a hand motion signifies what he has trouble putting into words, because honestly, how do you explain that it feels right to be sharing a bed with the woman your best friend married? “I’m sleeping better than you are. Six hours of quality shuteye and I’m ready to roll again in the morning. You’re just not noticing because you’re at that stage where you’re up every two hours to pee, so you’re sleeping in during the weekends, which I didn’t want to disturb this morning.”

Stiles goes silent as she leans into him, her mouth over his, tasting of toothpaste and orange juice. There is a part of him that still isn’t used to this change in their relationship, this ability for them to touch and stroke and do things for each other (or to each other) without recrimination. There is another part of him that feels as if he has finally come home, as if he has been waiting for this his entire life.

A third part still feels incomplete. He glances at Scott, who still stands behind Allison, and his heart hitches because he knows what the missing piece is.

“He’s here now.” Stiles has to pull back from the kiss to speak, his hand tangled in her hair, fingers light against the back of her neck. “He’s standing right behind you, Al. He hasn’t said anything, not this time, but he’s told me before to take care of you. He’s asked about your baby, about you. He misses you.”

Scott smiles that lopsided fond smile of his. “All of that,” he tells Stiles. “And that I’m not going anywhere, and that I’m okay with what’s happening between you two. Tell her that, okay? I don’t want her feeling guilty.”

“He’s here.” Allison’s voice has gone flat. “And he’s watching me kiss you?”

“He’s okay with it.” Stiles knows how weak it sounds, like he’s justifying something. “The other night, on the couch.” He feels the flush crawling up over his ears and down the back of his neck in a rush of heat. “He was there, then, too. He tried to show me what you like. He asked me to help him with you. And I know it sounds crazy.” The words rush out, tumbling over each other as he frames her face with both hands, begs her with his eyes not to run away. “But I promise, you _know_ I would never do anything to hurt him or you, right? And I swear to every god that might be out there, he said _dude, it’s okay, I’m dead_.”

She turns her head and Stiles knows that if Allison had fur, he’d see her hackles rise. “There’s nothing here, Stiles.”

“You have to believe me.”

“Dude, it’s okay.” Scott sounds sad and resigned, voice so soft that Stiles can barely hear him. He has that kicked puppy look as he crouches by Allison, his head against her thigh, hand on her belly. “It’s okay,” he says again, even more softly. “It doesn’t matter if she can see me. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m still here.”

“Clinically,” Allison murmurs. “And without emotion.”

Stiles has heard the words before, on the night Scott died, and he knows that they are from her mother. He knows that they are Allison’s way of trying to push the emotion out and give herself space to think through a problem when it threatens to overwhelm her. He gives her time to work through it and wrestle the idea around. And he waits for questions.

“Why?” 

She gives him only that one word, opening up such a wide area for his response. Stiles pushes at his hair and tries to remember all the details so he gets this right on the first try.

“He can’t actually go,” he tells her. And he goes on to give her everything that Scott has said to him about being bound, about the way their hearts wrap around each other and entangle so tightly that Scott can’t leave them behind. He picks up papers as he speaks, dissertations on binding magic and on life and death… information on ghosts (common) and resurrection (impossible). He shows her everything he has, beginning at the very start of it, and ending with the most recent letter from Nakamura that goes into detail of how the spirit relates to the body, and what happens when the spirit is unable to move on.

“You’ve forgotten one thing,” Allison says when he’s done.

“That he’s actually _dead_?” Stiles asks, expression rueful. He’s surprised when she shakes her head in response.

“You forgot what kind of alpha he is.” She lets the words sit between them, gives Stiles his chance to worry it over in his mind, turning the words around and teasing ideas from him.

“He’s not a normal alpha,” Stiles muses. “He doesn’t follow the rules. There isn’t much written about the idea of the true alpha because he’s rare. One in a million.” He can see Scott grin and bow slightly out of the corner of his eye, and it startles a laugh from him. Allison’s eyes go wide, and Stiles is helpless to explain so he just spreads his hands. “He’s also a goof, even when he’s dead.”

“Tell her I love her,” Scott says, expression falling serious in a heartbeat.

“Dude, I don’t want to bring the mood down. We’re brainstorming here.”

“I know.” Scott’s voice is low and urgent. “Just… tell her I love her. And if you do, tell her that too. There isn’t enough time to not say the words.”

Stiles’s heart aches, and he rubs at his chest with one hand, pushing at it as if that might make it stop. He reaches out with his other arm, giving space for Allison to fit herself there. “He loves you,” he murmurs against her hair. “He still does, and you knew that, but yeah… so do I, Al. I know it’s not the same, but it’s true.”

In a way, it’s too soon to say the words, but at the same time, they are incredibly overdue. Stiles never had a problem telling Scott how he felt; he’s always been free with those three little words with Scott, with his Dad. But even after the bond, he never told her that she was a part of the little family he’d gathered around himself. That it wasn’t like he loved Scott, but he _did_ love her. And now… it’s all changing, tumbling upside down in the wake of the Scott-sized hole in his heart. He doesn’t know _how_ exactly he loves her, but he does.

And Scott’s right. He can’t not say it, not when it’s possible that chance could just disappear.

She frames his face with delicate fingers and brushes a light kiss against his lips. “I know,” she says. “I know, and me too, on all counts.”

He buries his fingers in her hair, holding on while he kisses her back, starting out feathery soft and deepening with each touch of lips to lips, tongue to tongue. She anchors him here in reality, and gives him back some sense of being whole. He breathes her in, and feels it settle his bones.

The realization of what he’s forgotten strikes deep and sharp, and he pulls away to stare at them both. “Scott’s a True Alpha.” He infuses it with the capital letters, knowing how important it is.

Allison looks back with her pupils wide and lips swollen and red, waiting for more kisses. “We were just talking about that, before you changed the subject, yes,” she points out.

Stiles jumps up, out of his chair. “No, you’re missing the point. I missed the point. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this. He’s a _True Alpha_ , so the thing is… what if part of the reason he’s not moving on is because his _body_ hasn’t really moved on?”

“He… what?” Allison shakes her head, then settles one hand on her belly where if Stiles looks, he can see the slight bulge of a foot or a hand pressing outward as her son moves.

“What if he’s not entirely _dead_ ,” Stiles says. “What if he’s still here, talking to me, because we _can_ bring him back? What if he’s just waiting for us to figure it out for him?”

“I told you that you just needed to get working on it,” Scott says mildly.

Stiles doesn’t wait for an answer. He leans in and kisses Allison soundly. “I have to go call Deaton. I need him to have Scott’s body exhumed. Just in case.”

He might not be right, but he can’t risk leaving Scott buried, just in case. If they’re going to have a chance, he needs somewhere to go back to.

#

“I can’t believe it’s been a week already.” Allison sits in one corner of the couch, her feet drawn up, belly heavy over her crossed legs. Her face isn’t as pale and drawn as it has been since Scott died seven days before, but she still sits as if tension draws her like a bow string, wound and ready to snap. “I just… I keep coming home and expecting him to be here.”

“And you get me instead,” Stiles quips, even if it isn’t really funny.

She gives him a wry smile. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’d be going insane if you weren’t here, Stiles. I feel…” She points from him to her, touching her heart. “We’re linked. I need you.”

“I need you too,” he admits. He uncurls himself from his own corner and unfolds his arms. He lifts the one closer to Allison and makes a low noise, and she slowly moves into him, leaning against his side, tucked up and against his heartbeat. She sighs and settles, and he relaxes now that she’s close.

They need each other now, more than they ever did before. Scott used to be the puzzle piece between them, but in the week since his death, Allison and Stiles have been changing their edges to fit together without him. It is the only way they can stay stable, if they keep each other standing.

“You are so different from him,” Allison murmurs. “You guys have been friends so long, I keep thinking that you ought to be more alike, but you’re not. You say you’re brothers, but that’s not even quite right. You’re in sync. You know what each other is thinking without having to say it, and you care about each other, but you’re still completely different. He’s calm and you’re—”

“—Not,” Stiles finishes the sentence for her. “That’s what made us so perfect. We’ve got things that are the same, but we complement each other, too.” He presses his lips together, resisting restating it all in the past tense, because it’s done now. “And then there’s the big difference. He found you.”

She smiles suddenly, bright and soft and gentle. “He did, didn’t he?” She tilts her head against Stiles’s shoulder, nuzzling in close. “I knew the day we met that he was the one. It’s not supposed to be real that it happens like that, love at first sight, but it did. Even with everything else that happened—my mom, my grandfather, Isaac—I knew I’d come back to him and I knew he’d be there when I did. And here we are.” Her hand is on her belly, lightly rubbing the taut, rounded skin. “And I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

Stiles has no idea what to say. Maybe this is one of those times where he should just let her talk until she’s done, rubbing her shoulders lightly to work out the knots that collect at the base of her neck.

“He always had faith in us.” Allison’s voice is low, slipping into the past tense finally with a small hiccup. “I miss him, Stiles. He’s always going to be in my heart. Not just,” she presses her hand against Stiles’s chest, over his heart. “Not just because of that. But because he’s mine. And I never minded sharing him with you, and I’m so thankful that you never minded sharing him with me.”

“Oh, I minded,” Stiles counters with a quick grin. “Back in the beginning. I was possessive, in case you couldn’t tell, and I wasn’t ready for him to go completely obsessive over a girl when we’d both spent our teenage years being completely ignored until then. But you won me over.” He nudges her lightly, squeezing her shoulder. “You wormed your way into my heart.”

“When we died together,” she says flatly, and Stiles makes a face at that.

“That’s part of it. It definitely changed how we all fit,” he admits. “But it’s more than that. You’re as much a part of my life as he is. Was.” It’s hard to get the tense right, even after a week of knowing that he is gone. Stiles catches his lip in his teeth, pulls on it hard as a reminder. “I mean, I’ve been planning on being crazy Uncle Stiles to your peanut when he’s born. That’s not going to change. I’m not going to let you go through it alone.”

She sniffles, and Stiles can feel the tears coming, the change in the way she leans on him, the way her fingers dig into his forearm. “There’s no one like him,” she whispers. “He was everything I ever wanted. We _fit_ so perfectly, and I will never find that again. I will never love anyone else exactly the same way.”

“Neither will I.” Stiles lets that sit between them for a moment, before he adds softly, “But someday you will love again, Al. I’m sure of it. And it will be brilliant and amazing and there will be space in your heart for someone else. Just remember, though, I’m a jealous and possessive kind of guy, and if he doesn’t treat you right, I’ll be right there in his face to tell him off. Plus you’ve got a whole wolf pack full of protectors. But I promise, you won’t be alone, not forever.”

“It won’t be the same.”

His fingers curl against the back of her neck, and he knows _exactly_ what she means. He has friends. He has people who fit into the various places in his life—his dad, the pack, even Allison—but none of them are Scott. They are all important, and he loves them in different ways, but they can’t replace the one he’s lost.

“I know,” he murmurs, kissing her forehead. “It won’t be the same, but it’ll still be good. And hey, in the end, you’ve always got me.”

She laughs then. _Laughs_ and Stiles thinks that maybe he ought to be insulted except that it’s the first time he can think of her laughing since they both felt Scott die, and he just wants to keep her doing it. So he lets it go and holds on tight when the laughter turns to tears, because he meant what he said. He’ll always be there for her, no matter what.

#

Stiles wakes to realize that he is hunched over the table, one arm curled around the laptop, his face pressed against the smooth top. He blinks into the mostly dark room, eyes wet and making things shimmer when he looks at them. Even Allison’s face has a strange halo around it until he rubs the moisture away.

“Hey,” she says quietly, the backs of her fingers light against his cheek. “You should sleep in a bed, not out here.”

It feels like it’s the middle of the night—it probably _is_ the middle of the night—and Stiles isn’t sure he’s actually gotten any sleep yet. “I was working on something.”

“You were crying.” She pulls up a chair and settles heavily into it, then lets her fingers drift over his cheek. “Stiles, this is taking so much out of you.”

“He trusts me to figure it out. And I _need_ to figure it out. For all of us. For you, for me, for _him_ , for the baby…” Stiles’s voice trails off, one hand gesturing, then falling back to his side because he’s run out of steam. “The problem is, I can’t find the answer. I know it has to be out there, and I’m missing some part of it. Something important.”

“What have you got so far?” She reaches for his hands, holds them between her own, giving him an anchor when he feels like he might fly apart.

Stiles drags in a breath, centers himself in the fresh soap scent of her. “Sacrifice,” he says plainly. “Everything I’ve found points to some kind of sacrifice, because in order to return a soul from purgatory, another person has to die. It’s like he’s caught in this not-dead state, and we can’t get him back because he’s stuck there, but any magical solution would mean killing someone.” He presses his lips together for a moment. “We can’t do that. Scott would hate it if we did that.”

“And what do you think?” Her thumbs move in slow circles over his skin, gentle and calm.

“I think I want Scott back, but I don’t want him to hate me.” Stiles has to admit it, because out of them all, he’d be the one most likely to go the sacrifice route. Anything to save a friend. There must be _someone_ evil who deserves to die, someone who has hurt people, destroyed lives. They could be doing good by getting rid of them _and_ bring back their alpha and best friend and husband all at once.

Except he can’t do it. Stiles _knows_ he can’t do it.

“I agree.” Allison leans in to kiss his forehead, and he meets her, taking comfort in her closeness. “I don’t want to be without him… but we can’t pay that price. And we can’t ask _him_ to pay that price, when we know he wouldn’t.”

She is so close, so he kisses her slowly, letting her tease his mouth open and tasting her in return. It’s slow and lazy and familiar now, something they’ve been indulging in and taking comfort from. He knows the taste of her, and he doesn’t want to give it up. He wonders what would happen, if Scott came back somehow. How things would change between the three of them, or if they would somehow just shift around to make room for each other.

It’s not such a bad thought.

It’s funny how he can think about kissing Scott when he’s kissing Allison, and it doesn’t lose meaning at all.

“What?” She pulls back and looks at him curiously.

“Scott,” he says, and he gets the feeling he doesn’t need to say more than that when she just nods.

“He said he’s okay with this, right?” She tugs at his hands when she stands up, slowly stepping backwards, leading him towards the bedroom. “Because if he is, then I want… I want you. All of you. As much as you’re interested in giving me.”

Stiles laughs a little and pulls back, crowding as she wobbles off-balance, nudging her back against the wall. He brushes his lips against her forehead, her nose, her mouth. “I’m okay with that. And he’s okay with that. We’re all good, Allison, and I am more than willing to let you take advantage of me.”

They make it to bed, stripping each other out of clothes until they lie naked on top of the sheets. Stiles can’t resist touching her belly again, pressing lightly against the small bump that he sees, grinning when it presses back. “I think the peanut just gave me a high five.”

“Or he tried to put his foot in your face,” Allison agrees. “He’s an active bugger. Scott thought he was going to be a born wolf.”

“The rest of the pack seems to think he’ll be a natural alpha.” It’s a little weird, thinking about it like that. Amazing, too, that they could start out life so human, but the idea of bearing a tiny wolf seems so normal.

When the phone rings, Stiles reaches out to pick it up, accepting the call only when he sees that it’s Deaton. He touches the button for speaker and sets it on the bed between them. “Hey. You’re on speaker.”

“Hello, Stiles. Allison.” Deaton’s voice is calm. “I am sorry for the odd hour, but this was the first chance I have had to contact you today. We have Scott’s body here.”

“We?”

“The pack insists on staying with him. His scent is still fresh. Isaac is with him now.” Deaton goes silent for a moment, and Stiles looks at Allison. She is biting one knuckle, the skin white around her teeth. He covers her other hand with his, squeezing lightly.

“How can his scent be fresh?” Stiles asks.

“His body has yet to begin the process of decomposition,” Deaton states. “When we had him interred, we refused autopsy and we refused a traditional embalming. It is considered an affront to the wolves, and would have disturbed them greatly during the wake and funeral. Scott was placed in the ground in his natural state, so by this point, nearly two months later, he should be experiencing significant decomposition.”

“He should be rank. But he’s not.”

“Exactly. He’s not.”

This is what Stiles was hoping, that there would be some _sign_ that Scott had a place to go back to. Except that place was broken. Bloodless. _Dead_. But at the same time, that body wasn’t behaving like a dead body.

Which means maybe there’s an answer out there somewhere. One that doesn’t involve killing someone else along the way.

“Thank you.” He can’t think of anything else to say, and he goes to touch the end call button when Deaton speaks again.

“It is unnerving, Stiles, to see his body in this state.”

“Yeah, well… maybe we can change that.” Stiles keeps his voice low. “I don’t know, Deaton. I figure it has to be that way for a reason, right?”

Deaton sighs. “There are some things that men were not meant to change, Stiles, and death is one of those. Be careful what roads you travel.”

“I don’t think we have a choice.” And that’s the thing… that’s why Stiles is _sure_ there has to be a way o do this right, because Scott wouldn’t be here still, otherwise. And what Deaton’s told him about Scott’s body only makes him more certain. “Just… let me know if anything changes.”

He hangs up when Deaton agrees. Allison is sitting cross-legged on the bed, her heavy belly fitting into the space her bent legs make. 

“I think maybe that broke the mood,” she says quietly.

“Slide under the sheets.” Stiles helps her untangle things so they can both climb in. It’s familiar; they’ve slept spooned for almost two months now, since Scott died. But they’ve never done it like this, pressed skin to skin, Stiles’s soft cock nestled in the crack of Allison’s ass, his hand across her belly, just below her breasts. He kisses her neck, and she whimpers. “We can just lie here like this. Sleep.”

Their breathing evens out, merges in time, Stiles breathing in as Allison exhales. When his hand shifts, brushes against the lower swell of her breast, she reaches for him and moves it, asking silently, and he responds with a caress.

It takes time to show her exactly how much he cares for her, exactly how much he loves her after all these years. But they have time, and it is what they need, and in the end Stiles can finally forget, for just a moment, and lose himself in this life he might be making with Allison.

#

“I need to ask you something awkward.”

Stiles glances at his phone as if Allison could actually see him through it. “Is it the kind of awkward that I don’t want to hear in the teachers’ lounge? Because let me tell you, people already give me enough odd looks while they’re trying to figure out what to say to me lately.” Three weeks after Scott’s death and Stiles’s collapse, and it feels as if people still walk on eggshells. He wonders what it will be like after a month, after two months… after a year.

Allison laughs softly, and Stiles is pleased by that. Loves it, even, that she’s slowly coming back to life around him. “Not that sort of awkward. I just… Scott and I were about to start a birthing class. Which is something I sort of need before I give birth in a month and a half, and I could ask Lydia to be my partner for it, but… you’ve been so good for me, Stiles. You’re my rock, right now, and I’d really like it if you could go.”

“Hey, of course, Al. Of course I’ll go. Just tell me where and when.” He grabs for paper and scribbles down the time and the room at the hospital, and promises to be there and to bring her food and maybe they should stop in and see Melissa on their way in and bring her dinner too.

Stiles tries not to look at the other teachers in the lounge who are giving him curious looks, wondering at his conversation. His business is not _their_ business, and he’s already tired of everyone asking if he’s all right and if he’s getting enough sleep. Of course he’s not, which they should know. But there’s nothing anyone can do about it; Stiles learned long ago that the only way to get through hell is to keep walking, and that’s what they’re doing now.

He stops at the diner on the way to the hospital, and gets there early enough to see Melissa for a few minutes and deliver her dinner. He sees the tears shining in her eyes and he hugs her, knowing he’s not a replacement for her son. Allison comes up while they’re chatting and the tears fall then as Melissa drags her into a hug, presses a hand to where her grandson bulges out of Allison, almost eight months large.

Allison’s better about being touched now. Better since the pack has been trying to give her space after the funeral. She smiles slightly, expression tight before they have to go.

At the door to the room, they stop, and Allison’s hand sneaks to meet Stiles, their fingers curling together.

“We picked this particular class because Melissa said the teacher is one of the best,” Allison says quietly. “She’ll give us a tour of the facilities, and go over birthing options, and when some options might not be available. She even does a small unit on breastfeeding.”

“There are a lot of things involved with baby making that I have not considered in the past,” Stiles admits dryly. “I always figured I had the easy part, being crazy Uncle Stiles to your kids.” Everything’s different now. He’s more involved, and he’s going to stay more involved, as long as Allison needs him. “Maybe not so crazy anymore,” he admits. “I’m here, whatever you need. Although I’d appreciate it if we can figure out a way so you don’t break my fingers.”

She flashes a smile at him, and tugs him with her as they go into the room. Everyone is standing in couples, some of the women seeming closer to due date than others. Allison starts talking to a woman who turns out to have the same due date as herself.

“Is this your first?”

Stiles blinks at the guy next to him. “It isn’t mine at all,” he says, realizing how odd that sounds only after it comes out. “I mean, she’s my best friend. Her husband… was my other best friend. It’s complicated.” Because he doesn’t want Allison to be buried under a fresh wave of sympathy from complete strangers.

“Let’s go get a spot over there.” Allison is right there by his side, tangling them together again and drawing him to an open spot on the floor. As they go, Stiles can see the other couple talking quietly to each other.

“Are you doing okay?” he asks, as he helps her get settled on the pillow and blanket that they brought for the floor.

“As long as you’re here, I’m okay,” she tells him. “I have to admit, this is the part that terrifies me.”

“You’re willing to chase after monsters with only a crossbow and a set of knives to defend yourself, but you’re scared of a bunch of couples and some videos about babies?”

“I have to push an almost ten pound infant out through something that feels full with a six inch cock in it,” she whispers. “Tell me how _you_ would feel about that?”

“I’ve never had a cock in—”

“You’ve had a dildo.”

Allison smirks and Stiles grumbles. “I wish I’d never told you that. It was a weak moment. We were all drunk and confessing embarrassing things and you _still_ bring it up.”

“I need something to keep you humble.” 

She snuggles back against him and his arm goes around her, holding her up. It’s comfortable and helps keep some of the class from being completely awkward. Stiles has seen a vagina or two up close and personal, but watching close up shots of a woman giving birth is not what he’d ever expected to be doing with a woman he’s never even kissed. But when he feels the tension, he moves his hands to her shoulders, rubbing lightly until she eases. He can feel her fear, and he can’t imagine how Scott would’ve gotten through this with her as nervous as she is.

The thought of Scott trying to growl at everything to chase away her fear makes Stiles smile, and he whispers it to Allison as well so she can be in on the joke.

When they are sitting facing each other, hands clasped tight, Allison has her eyes closed and is breathing as Stiles counts. She pauses between breaths to murmur, “You’re actually pretty good at this.”

“Panic attacks,” he reminds her. “We went through all these same techniques, and it’s all a question of figuring out what works for you. The most important part is just like she said—figure out what is _your_ calm space and use it. Don’t listen to me if what I say isn’t working. I’m not going to tell you to look at me if you need to close your eyes. Sometimes it’s easier to block everything out, sometimes it’s better to have a focal point. I always did better if I could look someone in the eyes because otherwise my head got too loud on its own. But you like to center quietly, and that’s fine. I’m here when you’re ready, and you just need to breathe with me. Okay?”

“Yeah.” One breath in, then out, then another in and held a little longer before it slips free. “Yeah. We’re okay.” Another breath, soft and slow. “We’re perfect.”

Stiles isn’t sure he’ll agree with _perfect_ , not after everything else in the last few weeks. But he has to admit that right now, they seem to be doing pretty damned well, all things considered.

And maybe that, in itself, is perfect.

#

Stiles wakes up to an arm flung over his face and a scream echoing in the silent night around him.

He rolls over, plants his hands on Allison’s shoulders and pulls her in, holding on to her as she clings to him. “Breathe with me,” he murmurs. Her eyelashes brush his cheek as her eyes flutter closed and she drags in a low, hoarse breath. Three breaths before it is over and her fingernails ease their way from his skin.

She looks at him in the darkness, eyes open now, lips parted. “It woke me up. He’s coming.”

There’s a small sound and Stiles looks past Allison to see Scott standing there, brow furrowed in worry, hands fisted at his sides. Scott pads forward in small steps, and Stiles tries not to feel awkward because he is naked in bed with his best friend’s wife. In the midst of not quite being awake, Stiles’s skin still feels the echoes of her hands on him, the feel of her under him as he pressed into her before they slept. They are still sticky and smelling of sex.

Scott doesn’t say a word, just settles onto the bed and crowds in close behind Allison, sandwiching her from the other side. Together they wrap around her, Stiles’s warmth on the front and Scott’s chill at her back. She relaxes slowly between them, her hand on her belly, the skin around it taut. Stiles feels when another contraction begins, the way she starts to shiver, the low whine in her throat. It builds to a bitten-off scream, her head bowed against Stiles, Scott’s mouth on the nape of her neck as she cries out. Stiles finds the rhythm of her breath and helps steady her, waiting until she’s stable again.

He pulls back and cradles her face, meeting her gaze when her eyes flicker open. “I need to get your things together and get you to the hospital,” he tells her quietly. “Scott’s here. I know you can’t see him, but that’s him against your back and I know he’s not going to leave you, not when your son is being born. He’ll breathe with you, and you can just close your eyes and you’ll know he’s there, okay?”

She nods, fingers tightly clenched into fists, and Stiles watches as Scott’s hands curl over hers. She slowly relaxes, arching into the chill, and Stiles can finally step away.

He hears her murmuring to herself, and he doesn’t have to hear it to know what she says, repeating the litany that her mother taught her to get her through anything. He has heard it when they were practicing, knows she relies on it.

But he knows there is no way to keep emotion away from this night. There is no way to be _clinical_ about child birth.

He pulls on boxers and jeans, shrugs into a hoodie without a shirt. Her bag is mostly packed; all he needs to do is shove in some toiletries and a shirt of Scott’s that he set aside a while ago to use as a baby blanket when they bring him home.

He carries her suitcase and the baby bag and the car seat out, and when he returns, Allison is dressed in a pair of sweats and an oversize t-shirt. She stands there, barefoot and wobbling, and reaches out for him when another contraction strikes.

He holds her when her knees crumple, when she takes them both to the ground and they kneel there. She is sobbing through the pain, crying that she didn’t think it would hurt _this much_ or happen _this fast_. Stiles has to agree with the last… they’d been told it would be hours coming on, that she’d know the baby was coming and they’d spend a day with her walking around, contractions coming intermittently. This seems as if she’s gone from nothing to _now_ while they slept for a few hours, and he’s half afraid that they won’t make it to the hospital in time.

“Can you walk?”

She nods against him and he helps her up. They make their way out in slow steps, pausing when she needs to double over, one hand wrapped protectively around her belly. In the car she takes the back seat so she can stretch across it, uncomfortable with the heavy weight bearing down when she sits upright.

“I feel like I’m going to give birth right here,” she mutters.

“Um, please don’t. Even after the classes, I feel woefully unprepared for that, and since I’ve promised to keep both you and the baby safe, I’m going to do my damnedest to get you to the hospital _before_ he pops out.” Stiles revs the engine and backs out of the driveway carefully. He is going as fast as he dares, and wishes that he had his father’s little emergency light to put on the top of the car and be able to drive like an emergency vehicle.

He can hear her in the back, hear every little whine and whimper and soft cry as she bites back the screams.

“I’ve got her, dude.” Scott’s voice is clear, and Stiles can see him in the rearview mirror and it takes a moment to parse that through at this hour, that ghosts are visible in mirrors even when they aren’t visible to other people. “You drive. Get her there safely.”

Somehow he lucks out and hits every green light on the way, pulling up to the emergency entrance. He rushes inside and grabs a wheelchair, yelling out when he spots Melissa at the check-in desk. “Allison’s in labor! _Hard_ labor!”

It takes both of them to get her into the chair, and when Stiles refuses to leave her side, Melissa asks one of the aids to take his keys and park the car in the lot. Stiles doesn’t care at this point. The car is so much less important than the pale, bloodless skin as Allison rasps through another contraction. He feels like they aren’t even _stopping_ at this point, and that terrifies him.

When they get her into a room, Allison clings to his hand, refusing to let him leave even when they strip off her pants and put her feet in stirrups, a sheet draped over her knees. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs, echoing the way Scott says the same thing, over and over, as he cards ghostly fingers through her hair.

There is no time for her doctor to get there; the doctor on call says she’s already at eight centimeters but the baby is in the canal, bearing down, and Allison can’t hold back. The baby is twisted around, not angled right, and in distress. The attempt to turn him is awkward and painful and Stiles can’t watch, focusing instead on Allison, giving her something to look at whenever her eyes open.

“I love you,” he murmurs softly in a quiet moment between contractions. He has his palm on the flat of her cheek, Scott’s hand anchoring him there. “You know Scott loves you too. We’re by your side and everything’s going to be fine, and just… never forget that, okay. I can’t leave you. We’re bound, and you know that. Just remember that. I love you.”

The words _emergency C section_ are cold in his gut, twisting him around and making him feel the echo of her contractions. Things move quickly after that, getting an IV into Allison, an anesthesiologist coming in. Stiles is hustled out of the room against his protest, and when he tries to explain Melissa yanks him aside.

“You can go with her, but you need to scrub in and cover up. _Now_.” She shows him how to get changed into scrubs, looking aside as he does so, then shows him how to wash his hands all the way up to the elbows. She helps him get the mask on, and he feels vaguely claustrophobic from it but there’s nothing he can do. He needs to be with Allison right now and if that means breathing in through fabric, he’ll do it. He has to do it.

Allison’s hand is limp in his once they get into OR. He can see from the machinery that she’s still breathing, her heart still beating. She’s just blissfully unconscious, unaware of the massive contractions that are still ripping through her body.

There are so many damned machines. One for her heart, one for the baby that stutters all over as it goes through distress, one to measure the contractions spiking all over the place.

“She never found a steady rhythm of contractions, and the baby is mostly breach,” Melissa explains quietly. Stiles looks at her, or at Allison, but not at anything past the curtain that’s hung between him and her belly. He doesn’t want to see the way they cut her open, the gaping hole in her belly that will birth her son.

He knows the moment that the baby comes out, the sharp, shrill cry of him meeting the world completely different than anything he has ever heard before. He clutches Allison’s hand tightly, wanting to see the child, wanting to see her wake up. It seems like only a moment before the baby is being pressed into his arms, swaddled in a hospital blanket, with a nurse he doesn’t know whispering, “Congratulations, Daddy.”

He doesn’t correct her. With Scott gone, he knows this is his role, to father the child of his brother. To love Allison and this child both.

Stiles takes a step back when there’s a sudden shout, and one of the machines starts screaming.

He hears the word _code_ and his heart goes cold.

The line for Allison’s heart has gone flat, and he has no idea what to do. No idea how to fix this, how to even think past the words that float around him like hemorrhage and orders for sutures. He wants to sink to the ground but he doesn’t want to be in the way, so he stands there and cradles a son and wonders if he’ll ever know his mother.

Allison has to make it through. Stiles can’t lose both of them. He _can’t_.

#

“Are you awake?”

Stiles was mostly asleep, dozing quietly next to Allison in her bed, still thinking about seeing Scott earlier that evening. He had thought Allison was completely asleep, but he can feel the difference in her now, the way tension has come back. He glances at the clock and see that they _did_ sleep for a few hours, and the earlier events seem unreal. He wonders if she even remembers what he said.

It couldn’t be real. He _knows_ it wasn’t real. It was wishful thinking and guilt speaking, built around missing Scott for a month and a kiss that maybe shouldn’t have happened.

“Yeah,” he whispers in return, and she curls in close to him, her belly pressed against his hip.

“Sometimes I wish I’d been in the car with him,” Allison confesses. “I think it would hurt less if I’d died at the same time. It’s so hard getting through every day without him, knowing that when I get home, he won’t be here. Knowing that he’ll never see his son, or hold him. Knowing that he’s _gone_ when it seems so _impossible_ that it could even happen that way. I just…”

Stiles doesn’t know what to say, just tightens his arm around her shoulders and feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes. “Al…”

“I miss him so much.” Tears wet Stiles’s shoulder. “I feel like everyone tells me that I need to move on someday, that I can’t grieve forever, and I just… I don’t know how to do it,” she tells him. “I feel like it’s impossible to go forward when I can feel him in my heart, that empty place that’s supposed to be Scott. And I just think… I should have been there with him. Me and Taylor—”

“You’re naming your kid after the guy who played a werewolf in Twilight?” Stiles can’t help it, the sarcasm slipping free in his defense. He can’t handle the pain so he snarks instead, twisting the conversation around to something else.

“I like the name.” Allison goes silent, her hand pressed against his heart. “Scott liked the name Rafael. Or Rafe. Isaac suggested Maverick once, but I hated it.”

“Was there a name you both agreed on?” He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, twisting it around his finger lightly, tugging on her curl.

“Alexander,” she admits. “Alexander Christopher McCall. And you’re the only person in the pack who knows that, so promise you won’t tell anyone.”

He mimes a key at his lips. “Not a word.”

They lie there in the dark for a long moment, little Alex turning somersaults in his mother’s belly, pressing in strange ways against Stiles’s side. It’s strange to realize that there is another person in the bed with them, a little piece of Scott waiting to come out and greet the world someday.

“Do you ever wish that you’d died with him?” Allison asks softly, and just like that, the conversation is back. “We all died together once before. I feel like it’s wrong to be here without him. And if I’d been in the car…”

“If you’d been with him, I’d be alone,” Stiles says, unable to keep the honesty at bay. “And I couldn’t live if I’d lost both of you. I wouldn’t be able to keep going, and I don’t know if I could quit, and I’d be a ghost, Allison. I’d be the walking dead if you were both gone.”

She pulls back, eyes reflecting the moonlight from the window as she looks at him, startled. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says softly. “I promise.”

When she brushes her lips against his it feels like coming home, like everything is, for that one moment, completely right in the world. It is a month after Scott’s death and Stiles knows that neither of them has moved on. But at the same time, it feels like they are falling in step together, finally finding a way that always should have been true. He hates it and loves it all at once, but he can’t give it up.

He needs her.

#

Stiles has never liked hospitals. He’s spent enough time in them, being a human member of a very supernatural pack, and he hates everything about them. The way they smell, the way the machines sound so loud in the desperately hoping silence of the room. But he’ll stay as long as is necessary now, because that machine heralds Allison’s life, shows that she is still here and with him, and he clings to her hand, afraid to let her go.

He can hear the soft little snuffles from the other side of the room as Alex sleeps, not caring that the room is dim but not dark. Stiles has placed Scott’s shirt around him and the tiny werewolf quieted at the scent of his father and alpha. Stiles knows that there is no way that Alex would know that, but at the same time, who is he to argue with mystical ties? He just does what feels like should be right, and sometimes it actually works out.

Stiles tangles his fingers with Allison’s, bringing her hand up to his lips for a kiss. The steady sound of her heart is a comfort, knowing that she is stable now, albeit stitched back together and pale from loss of blood.

“She died, you know.”

Stiles doesn’t look up to see Scott, not now. “Well aware, dude. Well aware.” He had counted every second of her death, knowing that it was nothing like when they had died together, but also that there was nothing mystical to keep her alive this time. Death had become _death_ , a specter hanging over them all, threatening to steal them away.

“Dude.” The hand on his shoulder is cold and heavy, and when Stiles looks, he can see the shimmer around the edges of Scott’s form, as if he can’t quite see through him this time. “She _died_.”

“ _I get that_.” It is still just before dawn and Stiles has been awake most of the night, panicking for much of it. He can’t quite follow what Scott wants to tell him. He’s sure there’s a message in it, but it makes no sense to his sleep-fogged brain.

“Scott?” Allison’s fingers go tight in his, and her eyes flicker open, staring right at Scott’s ghost.

“You can see him?” Stiles looks from her to Scott and back again. “Wait, you can _see_ him?” Because until now, even when he’s been researching, a part of Stiles has wondered if he’s going mad, suffering under guilt and delusions.

“Yeah.” She breathes it out with a smile, reaches out with her free hand and Scott goes to her, settling on the edge of her bed, leaning down to kiss her cheek with ghostly breath, hold her in ghostly arms. “I can see him. What _changed_?”

Stiles’s phone rings and he grabs it, realizing that the pack has no idea what happened in the last few hours unless Melissa called someone. He answers without looking. “Hello?”

“Stiles.” Deaton’s voice is as even as ever, but somehow Stiles can still hear the urgency when he asks, “What _changed_?”

He thumbs the phone to speaker without thinking. “What do you mean, what changed?”

“He’s breathing.”

Scott beams, a sudden bright ray of lopsided sunshine. “She died,” he says again, and Stiles _gets_ it this time.

Allison was the sacrifice.

Just like they had sacrificed themselves to the Nemeton. Just like they had woken the beacon with temporary death, Allison gave enough of herself to bring Scott back from the edge, to lead him home again. Stiles blinks, eyes wet. “Allison died,” he echoes, positive Deaton couldn’t hear what Scott said. “I think she was our sacrifice.”

“ _What_?”

Stiles laughs, a sharp sound on the edge of madness. “No, no, she’s okay now. She’s awake, we’re in the hospital, Alex was born about an hour ago. And Scott… I think Scott’s going to be okay. We’re _all_ going to be okay. Tell the pack, but just… give us some time. Allison needs to rest. She was dead, after all.”

He thumbs the disconnect button and sets the phone aside. When he reaches into his heart, he feels it like it should be, a tight ring of darkness that connects all the way around, linking three people in ways none of the pack could ever really understand.

“I need to go.” Scott pulls away, standing in the middle of the room, expression reluctant. “But I’ll be back. Give me time, and let me recover, but I _will_ be back, and we’ll figure everything out then. Because it’s all good. _Everything_ ,” he assures them. “Dude, I love you.”

There’s a chill when Scott slings one arm around Stiles’s shoulder, presses cold lips to his cheek. The words are the same ones they’ve said since they were kids, but they have different meaning now, and Stiles can’t quite assimilate it.

Everything’s turned upside down, but for the first time in two months, it seems like it’s back on the right track.

Alex makes a snuffling noise and Stiles jumps up to go get him, bringing him back to Allison. Scott is gone by the time they settle on the bed together, the back ramped up to make it easier on Allison’s sutured belly.

She lowers her gown and carefully holds Alex to her breast, and Stiles watches as he latches on, suckling hungrily. Allison glances at him, her smile teasing at him. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” she says.

“Well, it hasn’t involved a baby before,” Stiles points out. “But yeah, I’m not going anywhere. I think Scott would kill me if I left you now.” He slides an arm around her back, holding on tight while she feeds their son. Because Stiles can’t think of him as anything less, even knowing that he’s Scott’s son by blood. Maybe he’ll just be a very lucky child, with more parents than any of them had growing up.

He lowers his head to press a kiss to the back of her shoulder, and in his mind he hears Scott’s first ghostly words: _it’s okay, dude_.

And it is, Stiles knows. Everything’s going to be okay.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs against her skin, and he hears the smile in her voice when she says _okay_. It’s them and Scott and maybe all three of them, and it’s perfect somehow, in unexpected ways, and of course it would take death to figure it out.

But every shadow can be erased by a little bit of light. Stiles holds onto that, breathing through the darkness and easing into the bond they share. This is home.


End file.
